1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the field of medicine. In particular, various embodiments relate to systems and methods for controlling access to medicaments.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many medications, especially drugs in pill form, are now regularly self-administered under little or no supervision. Self-administration of medication raises the possibility that a patient will fail to comply with directions regarding aspects such as dosage and timing. It is estimated that less than 50% of written prescriptions are taken as prescribed. Non-compliance can greatly diminish the effectiveness of the treatment as well as increase the likelihood of harm to the patient, neither being desirable. Further, non-compliance can increase healthcare costs and consume healthcare resources that could be allocated elsewhere but for the non-compliance.
Non-compliance often occurs by simple mistake or neglect, particularly when the patient is required to self-administer a complex regimen of medications. In order for a medical professional to respond with corrective action or to change the treatment regimen, it would be beneficial for the medical professional to be made aware of the patient's deviation from the prescribed usage. A co-related problem is that during a doctor visit, the patient may not be able to accurately relay medically relevant information about medicament usage and symptoms because the patient's previous actions, symptoms, and side effects are highly susceptible to the vagaries of memory.
The patient's non-compliance with a prescribed medication regimen may result in underdosing, overdosing, medication abuse and dependency, all of which typically affect a patient's overall health and, in many cases, can be life threatening. Overuse of certain medications, such as painkillers, has become a major societal concern. Healthcare professionals have no acceptable tools to detect abuse patterns, to deter misuse, to limit diversion, or to optimize patient education for at-risk patients.
Physical systems have been developed to restrain patient access to medicaments to a prescribed pace, and involve the use of electronics and mechatronics in the dispensing device, components that can be relatively costly. These previous approaches are useful only if each abuse-prone prescription is delivered to the patient within a secure, abuse-resistant device or package and so the dispensing device costs, or the recycling of the dispensing device, must be included in every prescription. Such costs can prove prohibitive. Even if the device costs are amortized over multiple prescriptions, recycling may involve shipping the dispensing device back to a central facility, and return shipping costs alone can prove economically unviable if applied to every prescription.
Many medication therapies can be complemented with multidisciplinary healthcare support in the form of adjunctive therapies. For example, an evidence-based treatment approach for various mental health and pain-related conditions is known as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), which can be used in conjunction with prescribed medications. Even when adjunctive therapies such as CBT are available, they are almost always administered independently from the medication treatment provided by a patient's physician. This independent treatment may have clinical goals that are incongruent to the goals of the referring physician and, furthermore, treatment progress and results may not be available to the prescribing physician in a reliable and frequent manner. An integrated care approach to medical and relevant adjunctive health services would preferably combine all treatments into a single treatment plan. However, structural healthcare barriers, such as problematic inter-multidisciplinary communications, geography, and the logistical struggle of coordinating care, have prevented optimal integration of medication therapy with adjunctive therapies.
Various embodiments of the invention described herein provide a solution that addresses one or more of the issues described above.